Normally, I’d think it’s kinda goofy for a web designer to not design their own blog theme (even for a personal site — my design site was designed by yours truly), but when you get a freebie that’s as clean and simple (not to mention reader-friendly), it’s crazy not to take full advantage of it.

I’m still considering doing some tweaks to the theme, but for now, I’m really pleased with the way it all turned out. It’s easier to read, and I love the graphic element that the feature photos provide. Together with some fantastic Creative Commons pics from Flickr, I think it’s a winner all the way around.

Anyway, here’s this weeks’ collections of links from when I wasn’t tweaking design themes.

If you would like to pass on anything you think I might be interested in, post the link as a comment to this thread! Iâ€™m always looking for new things to explore. Note that comments containing multiple links are flagged for moderation, so if your note doesnâ€™t show up right away, donâ€™t worry!

Made Me Think

Never Again (from Unclutterer). I have a funny way of being both highly organized and completely disorganized — simultaneously — in different parts of my life. Finances? Highly organized. Laundry? Well… *ahem* … But organization typically implies that you want to be able to find something again, either physically or in memory. So what to you do with those things that fit into those piles? Unclutterer suggests a “never again” filing system for everything from “never again give Mary anything with nuts in it” to “never try to sort socks in the dark.” Hm. Maybe that last one is why the laundry just never seems to get put away…

Simple Guidelines for Workday Quality over Quantity (from Smarterware). Gina Trapani is well-known in the life-hacking blogosphere for the straightforward ideas she has for getting more out of your everyday life. The ideas presented in this post aren’t necessarily novel — they are strongly reminiscent of Tim Ferriss’ illuminating The 4-Hour Workweek — but it’s always worth a reminder. This week, I’m going to try actually putting some of these guidelines into effect myself: setting my e-mail to only check for new messages every 3 hours (and not first thing in the morning). It’s something I did with great success while under the gun last September, but fell away from recently. It’ll be good to get “back in the saddle.”

Do these Mysterious Stones Mark the Site of the Garden of Eden? (from MailOnline). Okay, let me first get this out of the way: the headline for this article is somewhat rediculous, and completely sensationalist. Alright, now that I’ve got that out of my system, the content of the article is pretty neat. After all, it’s not every day that archaeologists find a gathering site with exquisite carvings that dates to 12,000 years ago. Yeah, that’s right — no extra zeros there. Whether the site was the mythical or literal location of the Garden of Eden is beside the point; the fact that something that old even exists is way cool.

Is Marketing Evil? (from Seth Godin). A lot of people like to blame marketing for … well … just about anything. The latest craze seems to be blaming the current economic difficulties (I refuse to call it a crisis) on people for either giving in to advertising and buying to much or not giving in enough and saving too much (what?!?).Â The important thing that I took away from this post, wasn’t just about marketing. Instead, I took note of this gem: “Just like every powerful tool, the impact comes from the craftsman, not the tool.” It reminds me of a saying that I heard often as a kid: “A poor workman always blames his tools.” Good advice to keep in mind, no matter what your craft.

On Leadership

Why You Should Think About Encouraging Others to Be Brilliant (from Zen Habits). I think a big part of being a strong leader is making those around you better. In this post from Zen Habits, Leo explains that there’s a good reason for this: if on your own, you can make a certain contribution, how much greater will the contribution be if you empower others to make a contribution as well? Too often, we focus only on ourselves and what we get out of something — but sometimes, a bigger contribution can be made simply by giving things away.

Review: Results Without Authority (from The Simple Dollar). I enjoy the book reviews that Trent does on TSD, if only because I find we have a lot of overlapping interests. Leadership — formal and informal — is definitely an area of interest and growth for me, personally and professionally, so I’m always looking for interesting resources to help me along the way. Based on the detailed summary Trent provides, I may need to locate this one at the library.

Are You Anonymous At Work? (Guest Post by GL Hoffman, over at ChrisBrogan.com). This one actually ties really nicely into the Results Without Authority review mentioned above. By giving practical tips and specific strategies, GL Hoffman’s post really lays out a clear path for making yourself indispensible at work, and by extension, in other settings as well. When layoffs seem like they can be hiding just around the corner, it’s no time to just sit by and let yourself be anonymous. Taking leadership of your situation can make all the difference.

Blog to Watch

The Audience Matters Most (from Synthesis). In a lot of ways, Synthesis is what Sententia wants to be when it (he? she? what is the gender of a blog, anyway?) grows up. I particularly liked this quote: “[G]reat communication is not about you getting across what you wanted to. It’s about understanding your audience, their interests and needs, and giving them what they need.” That’s an extraordinarily important concept to grasp, not just in marketing but in life. I picked this post because it spoke to a number of my recent interests: the importance of understanding culture when it comes to effective communication. But really, I just wanted to highlight the really cool stuff that Shafeen Charania is coming up with. Very cool — scanners take note, the variety in this blog is fantastic.

Canadians Take Note

A final note, this one is almost more of a personal request. The Federal Budget presented this past week in parliament contained a lot of things, some good, some bad. But there’s one thing in particular that’s important to me, and not for a good reason. I’m going to quote from a petition being organized by Churchill Manitoba MP Niki Ashton:

For more than thirty years, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) has been promoting and supporting university-based research and training in the humanities and social sciences. SSHRC funding has been used to complete ground breaking research in countless areas in Canada and around the world.

The Federal Budget presented on January 27th contains a 20% funding increase for this program, with a caveat that has the potential to halt this kind of research: â€œScholarships granted by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council will be focused on business-related degreesâ€.

These measures are backward and insulting to the thousands of Canadians that are students and researchers in the social sciences and humanities.

As a humanities student, finding opportunities for funding was hard enough as it was — most money is funnelled into the science because their “real world” applications are more obvious. But that doesn’t meant that the humanities don’t have a hugely important contribution to make. Just look at my posts above, and you’ll find many examples.

The simple fact is that the SSHRC grants were created to help fund the humanities and social sciences — to help Canadian students pursue degrees that help them communicate, analyse, think critically, etc. Many students rely on these grants to get through school; in many cases, it’s the only viable funding option. Not to mention “it is not the government’s role to direct granting agencies as to what research projects it may or may not fund. This is precisely the reason why such bodies are independent from the government. Each of the granting councils allocates funding based on peer-review of applications.” (quote from the Facebook group “Stop the feds from earmarking SSHRC funds for business-related degrees”).

So, if you’re Canadian, I’d ask you to give some thought to signing your name to the petition against the move to only allow SSHRC funds to be used for business-related research projects. It’s important.